


And It Looked Just Like You

by cjmarlowe



Category: I Want To Go Home! - Gordon Korman
Genre: Bondage, Established Relationship, M/M, Rimming, inappropriate photography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:38:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjmarlowe/pseuds/cjmarlowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike has no idea what Pierre actually thinks of the photos that Rudy sends him for his birthday, but he's pretty sure they've always had more to do with Rudy and him than Pierre anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And It Looked Just Like You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gala_apples](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/gifts).



"It's Pierre's birthday next week," announced Rudy over breakfast.

Last year Pierre's birthday had been in February. The year before, they'd celebrated in June. Mike could only imagine how perplexed he was by their randoms acts of card-sending, but like so many things, probably chalked it up to Rudy being Rudy and Mike being...Rudy's.

"It was that trip to the zoo, wasn't it," he said, after a few moments of thought. "I remember now. You looked at that overly friendly otter and said it reminded you of camp."

"Are you comparing our illustrious former counsellor to an otter?"

"No, _I'm_ not, _you_ —" began Mike before realising it was a losing battle right from the start. "Do you already have a card picked out?"

"It's on the coffee table," said Rudy. "I signed your name on it. Your signature is illegible. But you should look at it anyway in case he interrogates you later."

"What? How many other things do you sign for me?"

"Nothing important," said Rudy. "And in completely unrelated news, your credit card is on the dresser."

"I hope you bought me something nice," was all Mike said. And didn't use his meagre credit to buy Pierre a pony for his birthday. "I have to go. I'm late for work."

"No, you're not."

"I am," said Mike. "I know you think the world revolves around you, but you can't actually reverse time."

"I set our alarm clock ahead," said Rudy. "You've got forty-five minutes yet before you need to catch your streetcar."

"Why would you...?" started Mike. At least, if it was an hour earlier than he thought it was, he had an excuse for all the stupid questions this morning. "We're not doing a birthday picture for Pierre _now_. No, Rudy. No."

"Of course we're not," he said. "I've barely seen you lately. I set the clock an hour early so we could have sex."

"Oh," said Mike. "Well, that's all right then."

*

It was their third—and last, as it turned out—summer at Camp Algonkian Island when Rudy first kissed Mike. And it was definitely Rudy kissing Mike and not the other way around because Mike would have—and, in fact, _had_ , though he never had the opportunity to execute—planned it all quite differently. For instance, they would not have been covered in mud, and he would not have been hit by a stray baseball moments afterwards.

"What was that?" he said.

"A baseball," said Rudy, and that was when Mike realised that it was in his hand. That Rudy had _caught_ it after it ricocheted off his body. "Do you want it?"

"Do I...? No, throw it away," said Mike. To his mild astonishment Rudy did, tossing it back over his shoulder. He heard the splash of it hitting the creek a few moments later. "You know what I mean."

"You're filthy," said Rudy. "We should go back to the cabin to get changed."

"We're in the middle of a baseball game."

Rudy shrugged. "Dirty uniforms are a legitimate reason to leave the field," he said.

"We're not _on_ the field," said Mike. "We're so far off the field at this point I'm not sure I can see the field anymore."

"Then what are you worried about?" said Rudy, and turned to start walking back the long way.

The baseball field was, in fact, just over the hill. And someone was going to come looking for that ball any moment now. After only a moment of hesitation, Mike turned to follow.

Rudy got back to the cabin first, by a large margin, but before Mike could even get inside, Rudy had come back out with his Polaroid camera in his hand.

"You're not taking a picture of me like this," said Mike. "That's where I draw the line."

"Of course I'm not," said Rudy.

"Okay, good."

"I'm taking a picture of _us_ like this."

Then he was kissing Mike again and holding his arm out to take a picture of them, and by the time the flash went off Mike wasn't even worrying about the picture anymore because Rudy was as good at kissing as he was at everything else.

Rudy made a frame for it out of popsicle sticks in arts and crafts and a week later gave it to Pierre just before they boarded the bus for home. "He was kind of responsible for us," Rudy explained, but never said just how or why.

That was the start of everything.

*

Their bedroom was more tasteful than any room of two twenty-something boys should have been. Which wasn't to say there wasn't a secret Duran Duran poster behind the door, or socks on the floor, but they had actual furniture that wasn't assembled from a flat pack of particle board and the bed was made. Or, the bed _had been_ made before Rudy put Mike back on it again.

"I don't know why you bothered to get dressed," he said.

"Well, if you'd _told_ me this was the plan I wouldn't have even gotten out of bed."

"If I'd told you the plan you'd have gone back to sleep," said Rudy.

"You know you don't have to be devious to get a blowjob out of me, right?"

"I know," said Rudy, "but isn't this more fun?" And despite the tight timeline, Mike was pretty sure there was more than a blowjob on the agenda.

The truth about the room was that with the Rudy-invoked chaos of the rest of his life, Mike put his foot down on this one thing. Their bedroom would be calming and organised in a sensible way, or he was going to find them an apartment where he had his own bedroom. Rudy had given in to his demands on this one without complaint, and thus far the agreement had stood.

"Don't forget about Pierre's card," said Rudy as he unbuttoned Mike's shirt.

"You're thinking about Pierre right now?"

"It's his tenth birthday."

"He's turning twenty-nine. Or he turned twenty-nine." Mike wasn't entirely sure when Pierre's actual birthday was anymore.

"I'm only counting from when I started observing it," said Rudy. "His tenth ought to be something special."

"I'm not sure I like the sound of that," said Mike, but his shirt was open and Rudy was working on his pants and he _did_ like the sound of his zipper being pulled down so he didn't pursue the other subject as diligently as he perhaps should have.

*

Mike had worried that it might just be a summer thing, him and Rudy, but this was one thing he was not going to let just happen to him. He was going to actively pursue it. He wasn't going to let Rudy call all the shots. But it turned out that even if he had, things probably would have been fine, given that Rudy developed a habit of showing up announced on his doorstep on the weekend (or, later, on his back lawn in the middle of the night throwing pebbles up against his window so that Mike could let him up to his room without his parents being the wiser).

It wasn't a surprise to anyone when they both went to U of T, though it was another year before Mike actually told his parents they were dating (his parents weren't particularly good actors; he knew in an instant that they already knew) and two before Rudy got around to doing the same.

Pierre's birthday was on February 14 that year, presumably because Rudy didn't want to acknowledge that they were doing something so horribly common and traditional as observing Valentine's Day.

"This way," said Rudy, taking Mike's hand and leading him down the path back behind the museum. Mike was worried about their joined hands, but it was dark and it was near the university and nobody was paying them much attention. After a few moments, it started to feel pretty good, actually. The found a spot on the grass, sat down and shared a Coke while watching other people walk by. Rudy took a picture of them in the dark, their faces barely illuminated by an overhead light.

It wasn't much of a birthday present, but Pierre said he found it touching anyway, when he wrote them back. Something about him taking his girlfriend there too, the night he proposed to her. Rudy apparently already knew that story.

Mike felt like he got cleverer just by long association with Rudy—cleverer and slightly more criminal—and so he got it. Nobody had to spell anything out.

*

Mike was absolutely going to be late for work. Mutual blowjobs, they could have done. A quick down-and-dirty fuck? Absolutely. But now Mike was undressed, spread out on top of the comforter, and Rudy was tying his wrists to the headboard.

Mike was pretty sure they learned that knot at Camp Algonkian Island. Which was how he was equally sure he wasn't getting out any time soon. Not without asking for it anyway, and Mike would rather get written up at work than ask for that right now.

"We're not sending Pierre a picture of this," said Mike, a trickle of sweat running down his neck, already damp at the temples and along his hairline.

"It would serve him right," said Rudy, pressing kisses down Mike's spine. "He was disappointed with last year's picture."

"It was only nine months ago," said Mike, "and you send him an off-centre picture of the back of my head."

"I was a little busy at the time," said Rudy in his own defense. "It wasn't my best work."

"And this would be?" said Mike. "That means you're not paying enough attention."

"I'm paying attention," said Rudy, pressing his fingers into Mike's hip as he blew cool air against the small of his back.

"Oh God, are you going to...?"

"I don't do rimming," said Rudy, and Mike could almost _feel_ the smirk on his face in those moments before he lifted his head and sank his teeth lightly into the fleshy part of Mike's ass. He gasped, hard, and then again as Rudy spread his cheeks and flicked his tongue over Mike's hole, freshly scrubbed from his shower not half an hour ago.

Oh, Rudy so planned this, all of it, didn't he.

"If you take a picture now," Mike managed to get out, "it _is_ going to look just like last year's."

"I'd never do the same thing twice," said Rudy, as though deeply offended by the insinuation.

And true to his word, there didn't seem to be a camera in sight. Not that Mike kept his eyes open much longer once Rudy started doing _that_ with his tongue. And his fingers. Like he'd crawled inside Mike's head in the middle of the night and drawn out all of his favourite, dirtiest fantasies.

*

"I have about thirty things to get done today, and none of them involve putting on a bunny suit," said Mike.

"Do any of them specifically proscribe bunny suits?" said Rudy. "Theoretically, you could do all thirty things while appropriately attired."

"There is nothing appropriate about this. You could wear the suit."

"I would, but I have an allergy to the chemicals they use in pink dye."

"But you're perfectly comfortable putting it on me," said Mike suspiciously. Rudy didn't tend to lie, but there had to be a loophole in there somewhere.

"You'll make the children happy," said Rudy.

"All of them?" said Mike. "I'm bound to frighten at least a few of them in this."

Still, Rudy's original bunny had backed out and 'for the children' was pretty much a guaranteed way to get someone to do anything, especially when the children in question were in the hospital over Easter. The moment he had the suit on, Rudy was putting an arm around his shoulders.

"What about your allergy?"

"Oh, they don't use pink dye in this. It's a pale red," said Rudy. "Did I mention it's Pierre's birthday tomorrow?"

"Rudy, no!" said Mike, holding up one pink-pawed hand, but the flash had already gone off. 

Mike didn't even ask to see the resulting picture, out of pure mortification.

*

Mike was rocking his hips against the bedspread with what could only be called reckless abandon as Rudy proved his expertise with his mouth in entirely new ways. Just when Mike thought there couldn't possibly be anything left to learn about it.

If Rudy could hold a Polaroid camera and do this at the same time, he was even better than Mike had previously realised and had earned whatever shot he managed to get.

"I'm—" said Mike, but fuck it. He was just gonna do what he was gonna do and forget _announcing_ it like he was even remotely coherent enough to do it without sounding like a twit. It wasn't like Rudy was going to stop inconveniently. Probably.

"I'm washing the blankets this afternoon," said Rudy, his voice low and a little ragged and Mike was the only one who got to hear him like that, a little out of control. It was great like this. It was even greater when he was the one actively driving him nuts. Which he absolutely intended to be, later, when they had more time, and when Rudy wasn't...

Oh God, Mike hadn't even known it could go in like that and he was coming, all over the blanket, all over his stomach and all points in between, which mostly included two of Rudy's fingers and the back of his own hand. Which Rudy then proceeded to take and lick clean, sucking each finger till Mike wished he had the energy to get it up again.

That was when Mike heard the familiar click-whirr, or at least he thought he did, or maybe that was just the buzzing in his ears from his at-least-partially blown mind.

Slowly, gradually, giving him a few moments to get his bearings back, Rudy kissed all the way back up his spine again, and only then did he move off to untie Mike's wrists with a speed and dexterity that shouldn't have been surprising but still was.

Mike rolled over, flopping right onto his back in a damp heap, and Rudy kissed his throat so fiercely Mike was sure he was leaving a mark. They didn't say 'I love you' very often, but Mike knew it when he felt it.

"What time—?"

"Get up," Rudy interrupted him, and Mike did before the words had entirely registered. Rudy was at the ready with a damp cloth, and then with his underwear and pants which Mike himself could probably not have located at that moment even with a highlighted map. He was dressed and deodorized and primped until he was standing out in the hallway again, by the door with a half-naked and definitely _not_ primped Rudy.

Rudy straightened his collar one more time, ran a comb through his hair, and gave him a good smell before putting a hand on his shoulder and navigating him toward the door. "You have five minutes till your streetcar," he said. "Better get moving."

Mike stumbled the first couple of steps.

"I told you that you weren't late for work," said Rudy. "Go. Don't worry about dinner, I'll bring something home with me later."

Of course Rudy had timed it perfectly. Of course he had. "You're not really going to use that picture, are you?"

"You know I'd never use any picture that didn't turn out," said Rudy. "Go, before you need to run. Any more physical exertion and you're not going to pass the sniff test anymore."

"Right," said Mike and kissed him goodbye, and felt reassured by that until he reached the stop and realised that Rudy had never actually said he wasn't going to use the picture.

Well, it probably wasn't the first ass Pierre had ever seen, and if he hadn't already removed them from their perch as 'favourite campers ever' over his gift photo for birthday number seven, he probably wasn't going to do it now. More than anyone other than Mike, Pierre seemed to get it, and if he really was somehow responsible for them getting together, as Rudy had said so many years ago, then maybe he did deserve the money shot.

For better or for worse.


End file.
